As we can read in the announcement, the new online exhibition "Visions of War" by European examines how serving soldiers and official war artists depicted conflict on the Western Front during World War One in paintings, drawings, watercolours and sculpture.We invite you to browse and to take a deeper look from this link.

The eBookAnimals in the Great War, one of the didactic proposals that was
developed by the cultural associationSe, has been released and it is avalaible in both
Italian and English versions.

Animals in the Great War responds to the association’s pledge to promote the history of
the twentieth century, disseminating an inclusive knowledge that develops
further secondary subjects that have been excluded from institutional accounts
with the aim of expanding the definition of a discipline, in this case history,
so that it is no longer the “science of man throughout time” but the “science
of the living throughout time”.

It provides teachers and
secondary school students with a tool, that offers updated references to
develop line of study in the classroom whilst also offering a methodological
support for individual or group work at home.

The eBook release was made
possible by participating in the first international competition “Europeana
Strike a match for Education” promoted by theEuropenacultural network in
collaboration with theGoteocivic crowdfunding platform and
the proceeds from the funds raised, in which Animals in the Great War participated
and was one of the three winning projects.

In order to receive a copy for
free download (available formats: EPUB, PDF), please contact the cultural association
Se to the following linkcontattiusing “Animals in the Great War
eBook” as subject line.

Exhibition's details: the exhibition will be available from the 11th November to the 2nd December, from Monday to Saturday with timetable 10.00 a.m. - 06.00 p.m. (free visited tours available in location).

Jane Glynn,'TRENCHES IN THE FLANDERS SALIENT'digital print on aluminium, 2015

New perspectives on the everlasting advancing of history in war’s territories invite us to a profound consideration on the memory of the soil, through the techniques and the looks of international contemporary artists from Ireland, China, Canada, UK, Belarus. Memory Lands is the new exhibition of the B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL's fourth edition, which enjoys the patronage of UNESCO and the Municipality of Treviso: the vernissage is planned on Friday the 10th November at 6.30 p.m., at the B#S Gallery (Via Isola di mezzo 3/5, Treviso). The exhibition will be available from the 11th November to the 2nd December, from Monday to Saturday with timetable 10.00 a.m. - 06.00 p.m. (free visited tours available in location).

On the occasion of the Opening, the artist Jane Glynn will present the brand new preview of her photographic reportage. The Irish artist is the protagonist of the new edition of the B#Side War Artists in Residence project: the photographer has spent a whole month on the Carso Upland (between cities of Trieste, Gorizia, Nova Gorica, Fogliano Redipuglia, Monfalcone), where she has dedicated herself to a reportage on the karst territory. The Glynn feels particularly attached to the idea of the karst soil: in fact, her country of origin counts a vast number of karst territory, so she has developed a special bond with the Italian/Slovenian border lands as well. The element more attracting for her attention is the flow of historical rivers, such as the Isonzo, the Tagliamento and the Piave: they were silent protagonists of numerous battles and with their vibrant flow, they represents metaphorically the passing of time and memory.

Victoria Lucas'CONFLICT'digital video, 2014

In Memory Lands, soil as a natural element is the protagonist of a dynamic memory, captured by photos and videos which are able to underline its invaluable testimonial essence. Starting as a static document, thanks to the artists memory becomes alive and vibrating, transmitted from generation to generation, leaving an unchangeable trace in the History of the land (like the rivers that cross it).

One of the international themes of First World War Centenary is the role of women during the warfare. This is logical if we consider the fact that the "Centenary mood" has to promote dialogue among different parts, countries and stakeholders through neutral topics or cross-cultural topics (like the role of women and children, the different and new technologies of war, the role of music in the different armies etc.). One of the limits of this approach is the guilty removal of all possible political arguments and discussions about that huge carnage. Anyway, the role of women remains a crucial aspect to take into consideration while studying the five years of the conflict. What we cannot allow is that the umbrella of political correctness hides the reality of testimony, even the one of literature and poetry. Take Siegfried Sassoon, for example. There’s no need to introduce him, he is for sure the most remembered and celebrated British “war poet”. Sassoon once wrote the sonnet “The Glory of Women” that you can read here below. And the image of women that we find there is in contrast with the image and role of women we are used to detect in the radars of Centenary speeches. This is just a foreword to the short poem and, moreover, an invitation to consider all the sides of our complex prism. Here Sassoon simply tells us that some women do not (or can not) understand the mental and materialistic condition of the modern war. Let's put it in this way: we do not know if Sassoon was right or wrong, but we can investigate considering also his standpoint.

If you're spending some time in the
Venice area, there are still some days to visit in the city of
Treviso the charming exhibition entitled “Organic Memory”. This is located in the beautiful
venue of Ca’ dei Ricchi, just one minute walk from Piazza dei Signori, the
central and main square of the city.

The exhibition will be open
until the 5th of August with the following opening times: from Monday to
Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 01:00 p.m. and from 03:30 p.m. to 07:30 p.m.

Before leaving you with an
anticipation, namely a concise and close photo reportage of some of the artworks that this exhibition
hosts, we remind you this web page dedicated to the event in the site of the
festival B#SIDE WAR.

Here is just a quick note about a book we could enlist among the forgotten titles that came after the end of the First World War. "Krieg" by Ludwig Renn was first published in German in 1928. It was immeditaly translated into English by the publisher Martin Secker and a new edition, always with the translation by Willa and Edwin Muir, appeared in the 80s (see here for the editorial history of this title). This novel, available in Spanish and Italian, seems to have low avaibility now in English. The book is autobiographically based on the war experience of the author that becomes therefore author-narrator. The standpoint belongs to a simple soldier and the reason why a rediscovery and new proposal of this book is highly recommendable lays on the straight account of the madness and brutality of war. Like other books released several years after the end of the war, War by Ludwig Renn benefits from all the meditation that stands in between 1918 and 1928: bombast at the minimum level and great simplicity as the tuner of the entire novel (and great engine of dramatic force, too). The book had pretty a good success when it first came out but was probably obscured by other best-sellers soon transformed into the new banner of pacifism. Here below we suggest a short video about the book and a writer that went through all the great wars of the Twentieth century.

B#SIDE WAR, the diffuse artistic and cultural Festival promoted by IoDeposito Ngo, has achieved a new international goal: Insight, sound art installation by Joshua Cesa, lands to Namibia on the 15th June and to Denmark on the 1st July. These two days are dedicated to the inauguration of two of the seven installation's bells, which have been donated to NAGN- National Art Gallery of Namibia and to Mosede Fort & Museum of Denmark. In fact, Insight is the protagonist of an international dissemination project: the ‘sensorial - auditive stations’ will take new routes, stimulating new keys to interpretation. Presented in Italy during the B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL's second edition, the dissemination project is now oriented to an international network of partnerships with cultural institutions involved with subjects and issues covered by the artist Joshua Cesa. Thanks to this new horizon, the Italian Ngo IoDeposito and its B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL crosses national border again and stays tuned to innovative and interactive contemporary art expression. With exhibitions, avant-garde artistic perspectives and international research projects IoDeposito carries on its missio through Festival's third edition, focused on the Great War and its legacy to contemporary society and new generations.

Insight is a sound installation, a sensory, narrative, auditive and visual path, a precious and vibrant relational architecture based on the perceptive stimuli of light art and sound art. Cesa's work aims to involve visitors through senses and feelings, in order to trigger an intimate and polyphonic reflection about what conflicts victims have lived. Inspired by the literary evidences of 1914-16, the artwork contributes in investigating the collective and individual memory of the first global conflict, starting from the sensorial polarity sight/deceptive – hearing/salvific, detected into the evidences of the past and common to all the conflicts of the short century. And it's exactly this polarity the main resource of vistor's interactive experience: Cesa’s installation -with Alessio Sorato and Lorena Cantarut sounds- puts in direct contact with the experiential ghost of the conflict, which is narrated by the reproduction of First World War's auditive prints through seven different ‘sensorial-auditive stations’.

The international donation project of the Insight's ‘sensorial-auditive stations’ is based on the assignment of sound concepts to the local history of different countries, in order to connect each bell to the specific history of the land and stimulate new artwork's undermeaning. So, as a demonstration of artworks' universal value, each cultural location chosen (Denmark, Namibia and soon even USA, France and Russia) has recognized a piece of itself and its history in the sound concept of Insight. «The artist has worked with native testimonies, gathering direct life experiences» explains Chiara Isadora Artico, IoDeposito's president and B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL's art director. The new artwork's geo-localization has, in fact, deep roots. About National Art Gallery of Namibia, the analysis of Great War human experience related to history of African conflicts has led to the choice of the Campana dello Stallo. The eternal repetition, the impasse condition -for example, the foxholes one- expressed in Italian war diaries' pages found here new perspectives thanks to the Namibians contribution. In this way, installed in the neutral, airy and metallic space of the Upper Museum, the sound art installation gives back a fragment of the African local history able to show inner affinity with Italian war testimonies. From comparative studies of Danish war dynamics, it can be investigated the dimension of countries indirectly afflicted by World Wars. The selected station for the Mosede Fort & Museum is the Campana dell'Attesa, which will become part of the important Danish museum's permanent collection. «The connection established between Insight and new cultural institutions' history» asserts the touched and satisfied Italian artist «it's going to create a new narration of the installation itself, but even of the absolute value of its universal message».

Details: The installation will be available: from 27th to 28th May at Piazza San Silvestro, from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.; from 10th to 11th June at the Park of ex Manicomio Santa Maria della Pietà, from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.; Saturday the 24th June at MAAM – Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove (via Prenestina, 913, Rome), from 10.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m.

After Udine, Gradisca d'Isonzo, Pirano and Genova, B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL's tour comes to the capital city of Italy, for the first time, with a series of appointments focused on public art. These inaugurations organized by IoDeposito Ngo start with Prisoners, the conceptual public art installation by Joshua Cesa: in collaboration and with the patronage of the Municipality of Rome, the first date is set for Saturday the 27th May at 6:00 p.m., at Piazza San Silvestro (Rome, Italy). The installation, which enjoys the patronage of UNESCO, will be available from 27th to 28th May, in the area of Piazza San Silvestro, from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. For the first time in Rome, this new artistic experience opens three upcoming events dedicated to the work of art: the second one will be on Saturday the 10th June at the Ex Lavanderia and, the third one, on Saturday the 24th June at the MAAM – Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove. All three Roman appointments belong to the third edition of the diffuse artistic and cultural Festival B#SIDE WAR, which is promoted by IoDeposito through numerous Italian and international events such as exhibitions, conferences and research project.

One hundred years ago, Europe looked like a big open-air prison: almost fifteen million people used to be trapped inside inhuman war jails and even more civilians were trapped between refugee camps and their own houses, living a life of destruction and deprivation. Through his installation Prisoners, the artist Joshua Cesa relates to that terrible war scenario trying to involve visitors in exploring a poli-focal historical point of view, between the past and the present. In fact, Prisoners is born from the need to investigate the experience of captivity in a perceptive sense. Starting from the historical experience of the Great War, the artwork triggers a reflection on the idea of imprisonment, a constant and invariable implication in all conflicts, impacting on the way in which we perceive the world. The installation consists in a series of cubic structures open themselves to dynamism, showing the image of many people trapped inside them, that, desperate, seek freedom. A container which become, in this way, metaphor for all the imprisonments -not only those due to overt wars, but also the ones due to concealed conflicts-, in these challenging times where man is above all prisoner of himself: so, the issue begs the unavoidable question of what are real borders of a cell. Prisoners appears to act as a veritable artistic experience, even thanks to two languages that underlie in the same work: fixity and perfection of the geometrical figure are combined with faulty and desperate gestures of those that try to achieve freedom.

A special role is played by the three locations chosen for each appointment: with the specific intention of starting from the centre and then pull away in the suburbs, the installation will enter into contact with different types of users, generating different approaches to artistic message. So, first date's path is articulated starting from town centre where, just for two days, it will be possible to face with these stories. The artwork is in dialogue with the shapes of the city, in a cultural landscape in which Prisoners is filled strengthening its message of reflection on captivity as a troublesome legacy of the global conflicts: for this city, populations and civilities have fought through the millenniums. A strong connection is established even between the installation and the second Roman location, an ex psychiatric hospital: in fact, those walls keep the memory of a painful and brutal imprisonment undergone by the one who, confined there for many years, has lost the own freedom because considered insane. Installed in a context with strong symbolic value, the cubic structures become containers and contents and, above all, they become primordial testimony of desperation: the despair of the one who does not manage to get rid, now as it was then with “patients”. Roman appointments' last date is set on 24th June, at an ex suburban slaughterhouse which is now a sui generis art museum, hosting communities and refugee camps for the immigrants and asylum seekers. Here, the problematic social emergency of immigration rediscovers the universal message of art as tool of knowledge, cultural integration and protection. So, thoughts go to social marginalisation and precariousness as prisons from which escape seems impossible: the random meeting with the artwork leads the passers-by to reflect on the encounter/clash paradox between their freedom and the exasperated condition of the prisoner, which is outside any time and any place (awakening a valuable, albeit uncomfortable, historical memory). «Is a B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL's really important goal to be here: Roma gives deep food for thought thanks to its specific history characterized by ancient cosmopolitan and intercultural meeting» explains Giulia Di Paola, manager of the new Roman IoDeposito Ong's headquarters «in a city that stays constantly in contact with its cultural, military and historical background, Prisoners can offer a new and multi-focal point of view about war conflicts' tragedy»

Imperial War Museums - The British Army on the Western Front 1914-1918

A kneeling soldier is lifting up a pet dog in his shrapnel helmet, 22 December 1917

"Animals in the Great War” is a
forthcoming eBook in Italian and English, edited by Se*, that will be available for free download.

Looking at the First World War from the
standpoint of the animals that took part in it, allows to emancipate the Great
War from textbook narrative, often exclusively focused on the European fronts
and the defeats or victories of single nations.

It is an educational tool, which aims to
provide the means to shift the focus to subaltern subjectivities, encouraging a
broadening of horizons not only about a single historical event (namely the WWI),
but also for looking more widely at the facts that surround us.

This project was one of the three winners
of “Europeana Strike a match for Education”, a competition promoted by the
cultural network Europeana and the civic crowdfunding
platform for social innovation Goteo.
As result it is involved in a global crowdfunding campaign, which - we trust -
will provide money for a completely free publishing.

Your help to reach this goal is crucial,
especially in these first weeks of campaign.

Please, let this project reach the widest
possible audience through your social networks and back “Animals in the Great
War” with a donation at the crowdfunding campaign page:
http://goteo.cc/animalsgreatwar

*Se is an Italian cultural
association, which aims to promote the knowledge and study of Twentieth-century
history. Find out more at Associazione culturale Se

The article here below by Bruno
Marcuzzo and translated by Julia Owen comes from the bookLa grande guerra tra terra ed acqua.
Storie e memorie nelle terre basse tra Livenza, Piave e Sile fino al mare(seehere to flip the full book andherefor text in Italian). We invite you also to surf the site laguerradihemingway.it

Each one of us has at
least one place which represents a moment which changed our life. For Ernest
Hemingway - more than he could ever have said (1), nor we imagined – the river
Piave (2) was that place.

Ernest arrived there as
a boy (3). He thought of war as a football match and the enemy as the away team
(4). He wore a made-to-measure uniform on which the stripes of a second
lieutenant were stitched . Whatever their age, all the American Red Cross boys
were at least second lieutenants, so, as far as the troops were concerned, they
were officers. The Italian officers spent time among them, in the canteens and
at the command posts; these were educated men and some of them spoke English. They
were certainly much more mature than Ernest. Even the infantrymen, marked by
years of combat and discomfort, seemed older. With them he shared wine and
women and all those experiences which would have been unthinkable at home in
America. The American Red Cross had entrusted him with running a canteen post,
putting men and materials at his disposal, and even a bicycle on which he could
move around without asking anyone's permission. He was a protected boy in a
grown-up world, and he was held in consideration both as an officer, and also
as an American. What more could anyone
have asked for in that particular time of life when unexpected freedom suddenly
throws open the doors onto a seemingly limitless world?

But soon the serenity
which came hand in hand with ignorance, his sky high self esteem, and the epic
myth of battle,would all lie buried in a trench on the bank of the river,

Despite ARC volunteers
being forbidden to go near the front line, it was not the first time that
Ernest had gone to look at the Austro-Hungarian trenches. That place where the
river points in an 'L' shape towards Fossalta is famous (5): just before the
last battle the Czech Lieutenant Stiny went by with the Italians bringing
important news about an attack. His friends from the Ancona Brigade were right
there, they would not cause problems. He left his bike leaning against the last
houses at the foot of the river bank and climbed the short slope. It was hot,
and the men were sleeping in holes dug out under the top of the bank. By day
one could sleep, it was darkness which made everything difficult: all the eyes
in the world would not be enough to see what was going on on the other side of
the river. In the dark all you saw was fear.

On the curve behind the
river bank there was a large dug out protected by earth where he used to go to
chat to the soldiers. It was dark by the time he left the command post dug out
at the foot of the river bank. He went up to the trench at the top of the bank,
and made his way down towards the side of the river, before walking along the
tow path which passed in front of a house whose roof had been blown off by
mortar fire. The smell of day's heat had been replaced with the sound of the
front line. A little further on, the reflection of a flare died on the still
water of the river. In the gun emplacement were gunners and a machine gun. It
does not take many men to control enemy lines; there would not be any sense in
sacrificing more men than necessary on a position that far forward. It was an
excellent position because from that point you could see down the river in both
directions. The trenches were so close that each had a clear idea of what was
going on on the other side.

A whispered
conversation, the glow of a cigarette, or an unexpected sound, and the
Austro-Hungarians on the other side, suspecting action, would send back a
bombardment on the Italians (6). ''Through the other sounds I heard a cough,
then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh, and then there was a flash''. The aim was
perfect.

The explosion, white,
then red, then purple, and the movement of air, carried him with it while
taking the air from his lungs. He had no time to think, he only felt himself
dying. He finished up, semi buried beneath sandbags, beams and other detritus
which continued to rain down even into the water; first the largest pieces,
near the Italian bank, and then smaller and smaller across onto the opposite
side. In the darkness he realised that near him one of the soldiers was dead,
another was crying out. The shock of the explosion had anaesthetised him (7) so
that he did not feel the many splinters of shrapnel which dug into his legs. All
he could hear with his ears was the buzzing of shattered metal. His heart must
have been bursting in his breast while the adrenaline warmed his veins.

He should not have attacted
the attention of the enemy, indeed he should never have been there at all. Now
he could have stayed where he was, pretending to be dead, waiting for help to
arrive; instead, automatically, he began doing what he had been taught to do
which was to pick up the wounded. The height of the average Italian soldier at
that time was 1.60m while he stood not far short of 1.90m. He slung the small
soldier across his wide shoulders and started making for the the trench below
the bank. The Austro-Hungarians, pleased to have hit their target, launched a
flare to see what was going on; it exploded high, illuminating the trench and
the ruins of the house on the river bank. This scene, in a yellow flash, remained in
Ernests' eyes, becoming the synthesis of his perception of the moment. The
image of that house on the river bank would remain in his nightmares as the
representation of distress.

From the other side of
the river they began to track him with machine gun fire and hit him first on
his left thigh and his right foot. He got to his feet again, made his way for
another fifty meters trying to reach the shelter of the bank. He was walking
badly, inside his boots his feet felt as though they were squelching in hot
water. He was bleeding from a head wound and thick blood ran down his neck. He
was hit by a second burst which hit him on the right knee and which sent him,
and the wounded man, tumbling down into the trench on the bank where he passed
out.

At first he was given
up for dead. The officers were alarmed, not merely on his account but because
of the trouble he had caused. They would have to answer for a great many
things. Meanwhile, the Italians, put on the alert by the explosion, thinking it
was an attack, started firing their artillery across the river, and the orther
side immediately began firing back. The night of 8th July 1918 should have been
a quiet one.

This experience
destroyed any myth he might have had of a 'just war', fought with force and the
purity of ideals.

He realises that many
Italians do not want war. He sees signs of their mistrust towards governments,
and orders that are far removed from ordinary people who want victory even when
faced with the unspeakable sacrifices of soldiers, they are insulted by
propaganda.

He will write (8): 'I
suppose it is just the loss of the immortality... well, in a way, that is quite
a lot to lose'.

The immortality to
which he refers is also that of his youthful ideals, the myths of truth and
justice which were killed not so much by the explosion as by the betrayal
perpetuated by greater interests which held sway over the wishes of the people
and drew advantage from that. He was not frightened of dying, something that at
that point he believed to be quite simple, but of dying in order to pay someone
else's bill without meaning to.

The young man's
illusions die on that river bank and, from there, a man who no longer believes
there is anything worth fighting for walks away.

This is the detachment
of the 'lost generation' - the period in which he lived in Paris that was
characterised by a resigned individualism but which would slowly disappear as
the tensions in Spain led to civil war. Ernest returns to pure ideology,
choosing to align himself with the wish for self-determination, an absolute
value which cannot fail. He defends the idea of the Repubblic because it is the
only form of democratic government which he believes possible.

The war in Spain will
teach him that no one can fight for what is right without remaining marked by
it; you cannot fight a war without getting dirtied; someone, on one side or the
other, will feel authorised to justify the violence and twist truth into
propaganda thus perpetuating the betrayal of truth, of justice, and of robbing
the sacrifice of the dignity of purity.

For years to come, he
and his pen will fight on. But he will have his eyes wide open and firmly fixed
on the the true wishes of the people. He will denounce the manoeuvres of the
various systems of interests and he will remain steadfast in the struggle,
which he believes to be the only true measure of the dignity of man which, even
when faced with the certainty of losing, cannot betray itself.

He returned to Italy
one more time to work on 'Across the River' with the old soldier spewing forth
confused memories. In the silence of the morning, gazing at a lagoon landscape
of almost heartbreaking beauty, he rediscovers his love for this country, a love
which now he finds in a time of peace. He returns to the river bank one last
time, not like those veterans do as they search for their lost youth, but in
order to settle his accounts with the fear of having sacrificed himself without
properly understanding or making a conscious choice.

On the river bank every
trace of the trenches had disappeared, the wind caressed the grass on the top
of the ridge. Ernest saw once more the house on the river bank, it had stood
witness to all the events but it remained standing, and it still is now,
although rebuilt. In front of the house he searched for the crater of the
explosion, then he pulled down his nut-brown trousers (9), and with the
delicacy of an old knight (10), he prepared for a cerimonial evacuation of his
bowels. But nothing came, so he dug a
small hole in the earth and buried a thousand lira banknote which corresponded
exactly to the value of the pension which received, then he filled in the hole
and stamped down the earth, just as people do after planting seeds.

His sowing of the seeds
had begun in 1918 with the burial of youthful illusions; it was a carelessly
made sacrifice and his voluntary efforts to an ideal had been betrayed. If he had not returned to justify his actions
then his would have remained a useless sacrifice. The mature man, who had given
form to his own ideals, could not leave that sacrifice without justifying it,
so he returned to tie together all the paths it had taken.

He put the money in the
hole. He did not want anyone else to pay for the sacrifice he himself had made.
He had not done it for the money. He left the money gladly to this earth which
still needed so much support.

''It's fine now,' he
thought (11). 'It has merde, money, blood; look how that grass grows... It has
everything. Fertility, money, blood and iron. Sounds like a nation. Where
fertility, money, blood and iron is, there is the fatherland.'"

The Second World War
had just finished and there were great expectations of the future. Through that
ceremony he found again his careless youth, he recognised it again as the
sower, justifying his sacrifice as part of the birth pangs of a new nation, and
it returns to him the dignity of blood spilt by the pure of heart.

Before leaving, he
concluded his visit to the old front with another ritual. He stood up between
the reeds on the river bank, raised his eyes and looked across the river to the
point where the enemy lines had once been, and he spat.

''It was a long spit
and he just made it. 'I couldn't spit that night nor afterwards for a long
time', he said. But I spit good now...'' (12)

Even a failure to spit
had its justification. As a boy he had discovered that if you were frightened
your mouth went dry and you could not spit. During the civil war in Spain his
writer friends in the combat used to try the spitting test. ''There was not one of them...who could not
make a joke in the imminent presence of death and who could not spit afterwards
to show the joke was real (13).''

They did not make jokes
out of boastfulness. Hemingway believed that truly brave men are always
cheerful. The fact that he now succeeded in spitting well, right there on the
very spot where fear itself had bewitched him, was proof that he had finally
worked through the idea of how one might die for a just cause without remorse. Above
all it was proof that the old sacrifice he had never 'wished for' now
demonstrated itself to have been shared by those men alongside whom he had
contributed to both freedom and its political consequences.

On the bank of that
river at Fossalta where the careless young man died, another man returned; the
river saw that he had never ceased to fight even with his incapacity to justify
human fear. This return concluded another cycle. The man who spat now was no
longer the young Ernest, but neither was he Hemingway the mature combatant. Another
man went away from the Piave river: it was an old man who will no longer write
of soldiers and wars because ''he declares a separate peace'', a peace where
destiny welcomes courage and fear without perceiving any difference between
them. Now he would write of an old man fishing in a sea he knows well, a sea
which is capable of containing both good (fish) and evil (sharks), challenging
both himself and destiny.

The sea is God, the
patient one, who asks no questions, and allows those who wish to do so to play
according to their own natures. It is in that very awareness and the wish to be
part of that game that the old man finds peace: he is now at one with his role.

Notes:

(1) Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into
the Trees, ''This country meant very much to him, more than he could, or would
ever tell anyone''

(2) Originally the grammatical gender of the
river Piave was femminine as 'la Piave'

(3) His 19th birthday would fall on 21 July 1918

(4) Ernest Hemingway,
Letters

(5) Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and into
the Trees

(6) This
type of armaments, defined as trench artilliary, were the precursors of modern
mortars. The sound when it was fired was generally more muted than that of
common artilliary, so that it could indeed be confused with the sound of
someone coughing. Ernest describes the mortar as having a 5 gallon or 20 liter
keg which might lead us to deduce that it was a 225 m Bohler Minenwerfer. The
shells launched were not stabilised in flight like artillery shells, so that
during their revolution the different effects of the air produced different
sounds.

(7) The energy of an explosion expresses itself
in vibrations of differing frequencies, therefore just as loud noise can cause
deafness, so vibrations are capable of killing nerve endings.

(8) Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and into
the Trees

(9) Giampiero Malaspina writing in the Piccolo of
Trieste, November 1976

(10) On the front line a soldier would never leave
his trench to do his business for fear of being hit; he did it where he was and
then threw it out with a shovel. The delicacy of his companions came from their
taking no notice.

A new majestic work edited by Aldino Bondesan (University of Padua) and Mauro Scroccaro (historian) will be soon available. The title is Cartografia militare della Prima Guerra Mondiale. Cadore, altopiani e Piave nelle carte topografiche austro-ungariche e italiane dell'Archivio di Stato di Firenze (Padova, Antiga Edizioni, 2017) and will become for sure a new starting point for all the researches on the Italy front of World War One. This impressive work collects and reproduces almost 250 war maps. Most of these maps are Austro-Hungarian and give us a clear view of the Italian war front between 1915 and 1918. The achievement was possible thanks to the cooperation of Marco Polo System, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Antiga Edizioni, Università di Padova and Regione del Veneto. In the coming weeks we really hope to offer you more contents about this.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – World War I was
the first “modern” war as industry enabled weapons and explosives to be
manufactured in vast quantities that brought death and destruction on a scale
never previously experienced by mankind.

American Sergeant
Charles S. Stevenson wrote, “Machine guns, rifles, shells, aeroplanes, and
tanks — everything you read about — I saw ‘em all. We followed the first line
(the attacking party) for twelve hours and ours was a sort of 'after the
battle' review. I saw all kinds of German trenches, barbed wire entanglements,
busted houses, burning trees, deep shell holes, torn-up railroad tracks,
peaceful gardens, dynamited bridges.”

The experience of
American soldiers in the Great War is documented in a free outdoor special
centennial exhibition, Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace:
The Doughboys, 1917-1918, which debuts Friday, March
31 in the Museum’s Memorial Courtyard. The exhibition features the incredible
contemporary photographs of Michael St Maur Sheil, depicting the battlefields
of the Western Front where the Doughboys fought. The exhibition, co-curated by
the Museum, opens in conjunction with the centennial of American entry into the
Great War and is the first large-scale exhibition of Sheil’s work in the U.S.
His prior exhibitions have been seen by more than five million people across
the world.

In addition, a
second edition of the exhibition debuts at Guildhall Yard, the site of London’s
historic Roman Amphitheatre, on April 6. The exhibition then shifts to the U.S.
Embassy in London at Grosvenor Square (April 28-May 12) before traveling
throughout the United Kingdom during the course of the year, including stops in
Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff.

Relic German stick grenade in the U.S. action areas

in the Champagne region

“Through this
exhibition, we trace the journey of the American forces in 1917 and 1918, and
commemorate their efforts,” said National World War I Museum and Memorial
Senior Curator Doran Cart. “It is both beautiful and poignant work and serves
as another example of our commitment to understanding World War I and its
enduring impact.”

When the United
States entered the cataclysm of the war to become known as World War I, the
global conflict had consumed many nations since 1914 and continued for years. The
Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918 halted the fighting on the Western Front.

The Western Front
the American forces saw when they arrived and until they returned home included
scenes of environmental degradation, obliterated villages, vast cemeteries, and
continuing massive destruction. Much of the landscape of the Western Front
looked like an uninhabited planet very foreign to them.

“The U.S.
involvement in the First World War was a hugely significant factor,” said
Sheil, whose work has been featured in National Geographic and Time
magazine. “Today, it is often overlooked, but it was a New World coming to the
aid of an Old World, from which many of the young American soldiers – as first
generation immigrants – had sought to escape. Their humanitarian effort in
supplying and shipping over seven million tons of food to save the peoples of
Belgium and northern France from starvation marked the advent of America as a
united nation.”

Fields of Battle,
Lands of Peace: The Doughboys, 1917-1918, is open through Aug. 20,
2017 at the Museum. The exhibition is presented by the Aon Foundation with
additional support provided by Edward Jones, PNC Financial Services Group and
Park University. The U.K. version is presented by the Aon Foundation in
partnership with the U.S. Embassy.

In conjunction
with the March 31 opening, the Museum is hosting a free reception and panel
discussion featuring Sheil, Cart and Museum President and CEO Dr. Matthew
Naylor on Friday, March 31. The reception, which begins at 5 p.m., features a
free drink and complimentary light hors d’oeuvres with entertainment from jazz
musician Bram Wijnands and his trio. The panel discussion follows at 6 p.m.
Individuals interested in attending may RSVP at theworldwar.org

The exhibition opening these days in Udine (Friuli, Italy) displays an amount of artworks coming from the Luxardo Collection. Luxardo is the surname of a doctor of the Friuli area that was able to collect immediately after the end of the First World War more than 5600 magazines and monographs. The Luxardo Collection, now part of the collection of Musei Civici, is a large window from where people can view what was produced in terms of illustration and propaganda images in the different armies and fronts. The exhibition develops and takes into consideration the appearance of the cinema as an essential tool for the control of an already biased imagery. The last section of the exhibition is dedicated to the "new" art of illustration and comics, introducing to the works of artists such as Joe Sacco, Gipi, Manuele Fior, Jacques Tardi and Hugo Pratt. The exhibition will run untill the beginning of January 2018.

ACROSS THE RIVER

Dear Visitor,

welcome to World War I Bridges, the Italy-based radar of First World War legacy and initiatives in the pipeline for the Centenary. Our interests are in the "units" here below and military equipment is not on the top of our minds. You can surf this site also starting from these "units".

Why Bridges? The armies used to explode the bridges in war operations. We now try to build new bridges during the WWI Centenary from Maserada sul Piave, a small Italian village along the Piave River.

Terms and conditions

All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice.As for our suggested itineraries, though every possible effort to provide accurate information on this site, you are solely responsible for interpreting and using this information to organize your trip and excursion and to evaluate all potential hazards according to your own capacities and risks inherent to the different natural environments.

World War I in Maserada sul Piave

Maserada sul Piave is a small town in the North-East of Italy (Venice area), located in the middle course of the river Piave. After the notorious rout of Caporetto (October 1917), the river Piave became the Italian extreme defensive front. This location and the river Piave are particularly interesting in the scenario of the three main battles of the last year of the Great War: the First Piave Battle (November 1917), the Battle of the Solstice (known as Battle of Middle June 1918) and the final Battle of Vittorio Veneto, that led to the Armistice between Italy and Central Powers. In this locations, the British and the Italian armies faced together the Austro-Hungarians. The British Army was stationed here and that's why our village is an example of a location shared by two national armies cooperating in war operations. The museum located in the village is aiming to become a reference point in Italy for the history of a foreign contingent, namely what we know as the British Campaign in Italy 1917-1918. Since 2008 it has been building local and international partnerships in order also to create events and organize battlefield tours in this area.

Can you build a WWI Bridge with us?

If you're a Great War enthusiast; if you think of having something interesting to point out; if you think that the memory of the Great War should grow around a network of people constantly sharing views on this; if you think that war was not and is not only a matter of weapons; if you stop a second when you read the words "First" and "World"; if you sometimes think that the Great War centenary is getting closer; if you quiver every time you watch Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory; if you strongly believe that the real challange is to find new strategies to tell the story of this war to the digital natives. Briefly, if you discover yourself twanging like a chord every time you get close to this topic and if you wish to throw new bridges around First World War knowledge, we would be more than happy to listen to your suggestions, comments and opinions.

Please take a look also to the web site of the friends of the Maserada World War I Museum and write your emails to this address. You may also follow us on Twitter.Thank you for connecting though WWI Bridges!